One Rule - No Rules

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "What's up?" Louis asked, noting her expression.

  "It's started," she said, with a half-nod toward the men. When he started to turn, she added, "Don't look at them. Keep eating and looking casual."

  Louis drank from his ice tea. "You checked them out with your scope?"

  "Yup. A man in one of the pickups is watching us with binoculars."

  "Oh, crap."

  Thalma nodded. She cut off another chunk of pork.

  "So are they just basically checking us out...?" Louis tried to sound calm, but the thickening in his voice gave him away.

  "Yes," she said.

  She wiped her hands on a napkin. "I'm going out for a bit. Just finish your food and act like nothing's going on. If those men drive up, go downstairs and into the grow units."

  "You think they'd just drive up and start something?"

  "Very unlikely, but I don't want to take any chances."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm thinking I'll follow them, hopefully to their present base of operations, for whatever that's worth."

  Louis's frown suggested the pork chops had developed a sour taste. "Be careful, Thal. Be fucking careful."

  She smiled, and swooped down for a greasy kiss.

  "That's one thing you've taught me," she said. "How to fuck carefully."

  She entered the house and descended to her "grow cave," where she retrieved her bullet vest and usual weapons, along with a couple of powerful magnetic trackers and a remote bug – a small metallic disc capable of amplifying sound enough to record conversations through walls. She was always a sucker for the latest defense-related technology.

  Five minutes later, she emerged from her shed in the woods in full motorcycle regalia – now a long-haired blond under her helmet – and rode at a sedate speed out of the backside of her property. She circled back to a patch of corn fifty yards from the country road where the fake seed employees continued their pretend discussion. After perhaps fifteen minutes they returned to their pickups and rumbled past her toward town. Thalma waited a short time before easing her bike out onto the road and pacing them a discreet half-mile back.

  She wasn't surprised when they rolled right past DeMoto Seed in Volga and continued on toward Breton. She paralleled them a few roads removed from the highway. They took the first Breton exit as she watched from a stand of trees a mile inside town. Once they started down the main drag, she slipped into traffic well back from them until they pulled into a Motel Super Eight.

  Thalma continued past, and circled back along a side alley in time to see the five men climb up to a pair of apartments on the second floor. Parking her bike out of their view behind an adjacent building, she shed her helmet and motorcycle jacket, adjusted her blond wig, and headed across the lot in a casual stride. A quick stoop behind both pickups allowed her to deposit the magnetic trackers just behind their bumpers.

  She ascended to the second floor, sticking tiny amplifier/recorders to each corner of the two room's windows without breaking stride. Back at her motorcycle, she drove off satisfied that she'd done what she could for now in tagging their watchers.

  Back home, shorn of her wig and motorcycle accoutrements, Thalma joined Louis in an after-dinner glass of wine in the living room while her laptop received the signal from the transmitter-receiver perched high on one of the wind turbine stands. Several men's voices – some more distinct than others – spoke from the laptop's speakers.

  "That's just plain fucking ridiculous," one of them said. "You can't seriously put Lebron James in the same class as Michael Jordan."

  "I dunno, Durk, the statistics are damn close –"

  "You think it's about statistics? It's about the will to win. Lebron is a wimp compared to Jordan in that category."

  "Who isn't?"

  They continued in that vein for several minutes, while Louis and Thalma smiled at each other over their wine.

  "Sounds like they're more interested in the NBA than in you," he said.

  "So what's the story on this chick?" someone asked after a lapse of conversation.

  "I'd bang her," someone offered.

  "You should've seen her through my telephoto," said another, releasing a low whistle. "Man, she is all kinds of hot. She's packing some serious muscle, too."

  Someone snorted. "She's just a fucking girl, dude. She couldn't go five seconds hand-to-hand with any of us. Political correctness doesn't cut it in the real world. We all know that."

  "Political correctness didn't get her through WASP."

  "And it sure as hell didn't put a fifty round through Daniels," someone else spoke up. "Who the hell carries around a Barrett fifty, anyway?"

  "That was a punk move. Daniels was a friend of mine. He didn't deserve to go that way. I'd like to see how that bitch does without a cannon in her hands."

  "You ever been through Hell Week, man? She may be a bitch, but if she made it through that, she's one tough bitch."

  "She was in the Army, Rog, not the Navy."

  "They co-opted SEAL courses. I'm sure I remember reading that."

  "I don't give a shit. You don't think the instructors had orders to look the other way when those chicks failed the physicals? Some higher-ups wanted to see that bogus program work."

  "Yeah, and what did she she do after all that special training? They probably sent her off to sleep with some ambassador or something."

  "Mr. M doesn't know. Or if he does, he ain't saying."

  "There's something going on at that farm, that's for fucking sure. That place is totally off the grid. No public electric, garbage, water, nothing. It's self-supporting."

  "The DEA and locals didn't find anything."

  "That doesn't mean we wouldn't. We go in there, waterboard her a little, and we'll know everything she knows."

  "She's just one piece of the puzzle, man. We don't know what hornet's nest we'd be stirring up."

  "Whatever it is, it ain't in the same league with the people we work for."

  "How the hell do you know that? And it doesn't matter. They won't be calling in an army to help us if go we go in. It's the same old shit – you're as good as the men at your side."

  "Mr. M ain't gonna play it that way. He's a cautious bastard, and he likes subtle moves. You should play chess with him sometime. You'd see what I mean."

  "I've played in a few tournaments back in the day," one of them said. "Maybe I'll challenge him when he comes for the sitrep tomorrow."

  "Good fucking luck with that. He's like master level."

  The television turned on. The men resumed talking about sports – this time comparing NFL quarterbacks. Thalma confirmed that the program was set to record, and closed her laptop.

  "Wow," said Louis. "What a bunch of arrogant jerks. They have no clue who they're dealing with."

  Thalma laughed. "I know those men only too well. I lived and worked with guys like that for three long years."

  "Well, it's cool that we know what we're up against, anyway."

  Thalma leaned back, her forefinger clinking against her wine glass.

  "What are you thinking?" Louis asked.

  "I'm thinking," she said with a hard smile, "that this might be a good opportunity to take a closer look at Mr. Murphy."

  THALMA RETRIEVED her van from Pierre, now free of bullet dents and with a fresh coat of white paint. She spent the night transitioning to her male form inside it, parked in a quiet spot outside Breton. She wasn't sure when or even if she'd let Louis see her in that form. Once he had that image in his head... She repressed a shudder.

  By six A.M. she was parked in an apartment space that overlooked the Super Eight Motel lot. Now fully transitioned to male, she was a couple of inches taller, broader of shoulder, and sporting short-cropped blond hair and some dark stubble. She wore a SDSU Jack Rabbits T-shirt and jeans. Staring at her reflection in her portable mirror, she had to smile: I can't deny you are a hunk, Mark Matheson. But her feelings about "him" were mostly of the sister-brother variety.


  She sat in the back watching the motel parking lot through the external cameras while listening on a laptop to the men making small talk inside the motel rooms. Mr. Murphy was set to arrive, they said, in two or three hours. One of the men had already driven off to pick him up at the nearby Watertown airport. What they said seemed to imply he was flying in on his own private jet.

  She dined on a McDonald's milkshake and rubbery eggs as she waited, still not sure about what she planned to do. For now, she'd listen in and see what he was planning. Depending on what he told his employees, she might take out Mr. Murphy on his way back to the airport or maybe just follow him there to learn his flight itinerary and possible place of origin. Or she might just leave well enough alone.

  Two roast beef sandwiches and one liter of bottled water later, Thalma was about to take a much-needed bathroom break when a black Chevy SUV pulled into the motel parking lot and disgorged three men – the new addition being a man of moderate height and build, nattily attired in a blue business suit. Thalma zoomed in on him. He was wearing dark sunglasses, along with all the other men Thalma had seen, but he moved with an easy air of authority that the others lacked. The two other men flanked him on the way to the stairs, blocking her view.

  She turned up the laptop volume as the newcomer – his voice clearly recognizable as the enigmatic Mr. Murphy – exchanged greetings with his worker bees. They made some small talk, and then Mr. Murphy asked what they had for him. Judging from his and their comments, they were examining photos and perhaps video taken of her and the farm.

  "Pretty girl," Mr. Murphy commented. "Who's the young man?"

  "His name's Louis Maxwell," one of the men answered. "Apparently, he's her main squeeze. He attended SDSU for a couple of years, pre-engineer, before dropping out. Until recently, he was working at a local car repair garage. He accepted a plea bargain last month on a police evasion charge, which cost him a week in the county brig."

  Chills ran through Thalma as she listened. She resolved in that moment to create a new identity ASAP for Louis, in case things went south with these people.

  "No combat training or experience?" Mr. Murphy asked.

  "None that shows up on his official record. He's only twenty-two, so there hasn't been a lot of time for that, plus his school."

  "Tell me about Ms. Engstrom."

  "She moved to her current residence roughly nine years ago. The farm went off the power grid about two years later. There are no permits indicating any major work done apart from the wind turbine permits, which weren't cheap. Since they provide enough electricity to power at least a half-dozen normal houses, we believe she's running or overseeing some form of operation out of sight there."

  "An underground grow facility?"

  "That would be our guess."

  More chills overlaid the ones Thalma was already feeling. One of her worst fears was someone prying into her world.

  "The federal and local police that recently searched her place didn't use ground penetrating radar?" Murphy asked.

  "Not that we know of."

  "She is the one who killed Daniels, right?" someone else asked.

  "We don't have absolute confirmation – someone else may have been with her at the storage facility – but I'd say that's rather likely."

  "Daniels was a friend of mine. I'd say a blood debt is due."

  "I understand your feelings," said Mr. Murphy, "but I'm sure you understand that any decision to move against Ms. Engstrom will not be based on emotion. That would be an act of war, and before we go to war, we need to know something about our enemy."

  "Whoever it is, they sure as hell aren't as big as us, or we would've heard about 'em."

  "You know what they say about assumptions, Mr. Simons."

  A short laugh followed. "Yeah, right. I read my Marcinko. They make an ass out of you and me."

  "I was going to say, they often get people killed."

  The room fell silent. Thalma smiled. Murphy might be a fucking sociopath and a murderer, but he had a certain class.

  "Yeah, well," someone muttered. "So what's our next move?"

  "I'd like to know if and when both Ms. Engstrom and her boyfriend leave the premises. I would like to perform a quick ground radar check of the area around the house."

  "We might have to watch them for a while."

  "Do that."

  "She has a dog. A Rottweiler. Big motherfucker."

  "Purchase a tranquilizer gun or otherwise drug it. Do not leave evidence that you were there, such as a canine corpse or missing dog."

  "Understood, sir."

  "Keep a low profile out there. One observer, working in shifts. Have the ground-penetrating radar ready to roll so when their absence is confirmed you can move. Do not engage her. Back off if there is a direct encounter or if you're made. Otherwise, let me know if there are developments."

  The men mumbled acknowledgment.

  Mr. Murphy emerged from the motel room with two of the men, and returned to the black SUV. Thalma crawled forward into the driver's seat and started the engine. She decided to follow them to the airport. Maybe by then she'd know what she wanted to do next.

  She cruised across to the main road out of town, spotting the black SUV a few hundred yards ahead. Staying well back, Thalma felt as if her thoughts were playing catch-up with the new and swiftly evolving situation. Her first idea – simply following Mr. Murphy to the airport and attempting to learn his flight destination – now struck her as lame. Knowing his plane's destination didn't tell her that he lived there or anything else important. The sense that an unexpected opportunity had been handed to her and that she hadn't quite got a handle on it ate at her. She had Murphy clearly in her sights. When would that ever happen again?

  At the same time, the idea of five men spying on her 24/7 for the indefinite future grated on her. Ground penetrating radar that would expose her whole operation? Shooting her dog with tranquilizer darts? All completely unacceptable. Of course, she could kill the five ex-soldiers. She could kill Murphy. Then what? Whoever employed them could just send more in their place, and probably would redouble their investigations into her world. You could only stop people like these by cutting off the head of the dragon. But who was the dragon?

  Mr. Murphy knows who the dragons are, she thought. As soon as that thought formed, Thalma knew what she had to do. She and Mr. Murphy needed to have a talk. A tell-all kind of talk. But under what circumstances could she make that happen? She could take out his car, kill or incapacitate the men with him, but he could get killed in the process. If he survived, she could take him to the farm and interrogate him, but now that one of the men was watching the farm she'd either have to take him out or sneak Murphy in. All theoretically doable, but awkward. Also, Murphy would see her entire operation. That meant she'd have to kill him in the end, which didn't sit well with her, as deserving of death as he surely was.

  Thalma noticed that her van was picking up speed as if another part of herself was already acting even as she debated the options. I could take him on his plane. At first, the thought made no sense. What could she do to him on his plane, on his own turf, no doubt surrounded by bodyguards? But he would be isolated, and how many guards would he have with him? Two, three, four? For all she knew, he might have none. Why would he feel the need for a lot of protection within his own plane? But even if he did, she was confident she could eliminate them. Once that was done, she could interrogate him in complete isolation without any threat of interference.

  So how would I get him to talk? Her unwillingness to torture people – along with refusing to kill innocents – had gotten her drummed out of government service. Sodium Pentothal 3, the strongest truth serum she knew of, might have a chance, but she had none on hand –

  She flashed on her stash of LSD 35. LSD had enjoyed some success decades ago, and she'd heard of cases where it was still used with varying degrees of success. No way of knowing how well it would work, but at a minimum it would loosen Mr. Murphy's hold on reality �
�� always a good thing when it came to interrogations.

  The van jumped as she crushed the gas pedal. She was already heading the general direction of her farm. A quick detour should be possible. They wouldn't lift off the moment they arrived at the small airport.

  Louis nearly dropped the nutrient box in his hands when Thalma rushed into the grow room.

  "What's going on?" he asked, fear instantly contracting his features.

  "No time," she said, tearing open the floor safe and retrieving the bag of LSD 35. She pinched off some and stuffed it in her back pocket. "Keep your phone nearby. I might be a while. I'll let you know."

  "That's it?"

  She sprinted over to him and kissed him on the lips. "I'll talk to you in a bit. Don't answer the door while I'm gone, okay?"

  She sprang out the door before he could answer.

  Back on Highway 81 going north, Thalma feverishly rehearsed possible scenarios. Forcing her way onto the plane – messy. Smuggling herself aboard with the luggage? She wasn't sure how that would work. The simplest option seemed to allow herself to be captured and hope that Murphy would see the same advantages as she did in interrogating her on his plane.

  It was all a long shot, with multiple opportunities for Mr. Murphy's namesake to raise his hideous head, but even if everything went to hell, she could let "Mark Matheson" take the fall and return to her life as Thalma. Assuming she was still alive.

  She reached the small airport just as Murphy and his two men emerged from the black SUV in the parking area. Thalma idled past as they entered the office building, earning a couple of glances from Murphy's companions. Good, she thought. Make them wonder.

  She circled around the buildings to where a Cessna Citation waited beside an open hangar. Continuing past, she parked the van on a side street outside the airport, and jogged back to the Cessna. Now it was about being suspicious and interesting enough to gain an invitation into the plane while avoiding a shootout. One airport employee, and older man, was already giving her a wary look as she pried at the luggage panel.